


An Itch You Have to Scratch

by pollitt



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsmooch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-19
Updated: 2008-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Sheppard is pretty in pink (calamine lotion).</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Itch You Have to Scratch

If John had just zagged instead of zigging, everything would've been different. He wouldn't have tripped over the gnarled, rooted stump of some long-since fallen tree; He would never have gone flying (seriously airborne) headfirst into the thicket of what looked like the bastard spawn of Audrey II and kudzu; and John certainly would not have ended up in the infirmary, his face, neck, hands and arms covered in an angry red and purple rash whose itch rivaled that of poison ivy and oak combined.

Granted, if John had zagged and not zigged, he would have stepped directly on the mine that had been hidden on the path, buried almost flush to the ground, blowing himself and possibly the rest of his team high into the sky.

So if he thought about it, a little rash and some itching really wasn't too bad at all.

"Can I at least wear my shoes to my quarters?" John asked, looking at Dr. Keller forlornly before shifting his glance to his bare feet.

"No way, Sheppard. Those *and* your clothes are being power-washed in scalding water. Did you know you could get poison ivy from your clothing if you don't wash them properly? Knowing your luck, you'd probably be itching away and some princess or space pirate queen would probably think it's some mating dance and kidnap you away again," Rodney said, gathering up the plastic bag that held John's field clothes.

The scrubs Dr. Keller had given him were a shade of dark green, and after the declaration that his clothes would have to go to the botany lab for study of the Audrey-Kudzu spores (John wondered not for the first time how it was that Lorne put up with Parrish's plantgasms whenever a new species was brought into the lab) and would then be sent for decontamination, they'd have to do until he got to his quarters and un-spored clothes.

"You're still jealous about that?" John asked, hopping down onto the floor. "Christ that's cold."

"I've got some paper booties around here somewhere," Keller said, hiding a grin as Rodney attempted to keep an exasperated look while offering a tentative, gentle hand on John's bicep, avoiding as many angry splotches as possible.

"He'll take them," Rodney answered, leveling a 'don't mess with me' look in John's direction. "And _no_, telling the truth is not synonymous with jealousy."

John smiled the kind of smile that he knows makes Rodney forget himself for a moment and it gave him the advantage to take the slippers from Keller and slip them on.

\----------

 

"Sit, sit, sit." Rodney snapped his fingers and pointed in the direction of John's bed as soon as they arrived in his quarters.

John followed his orders like a good little soldier, scratching at his scalp as he watched Rodney disappear into the bathroom.

_Know I had it..._ _I just saw..._. _...move my..._

"What's going on in there?" John asked, and he heard something drop and Rodney swearing.

"I was just looking for-- **Stop that!**" At the command in Rodney's voice, John stopped with his hand in mid-air, hovering over his opposite arm. "You _do not_ scratch, you'll break the skin and it can get infected. Didn't Dr. Keller just tell you 20 minutes ago not to--"

"Okay, okay." John's hand raised in surrender.

Rodney continued toward the bed, a bottle of something pink in one hand and what looked like a handful of cotton balls in the other.

"Calamine lotion? I didn't know I had that." In fact, John couldn't remember the last time he'd actually _seen_ calamine lotion, it'd been at least a decade.

"You didn't." Rodney soaked the cotton in calamine and began to dab it on John's face. "When you're allergic to just about everything, it's a necessity. Both as a treatment and a prevention."

"So I take it the bed's going to be a little less crowded until I stop looking like I got attacked by a hyperactive kid wielding a paintbrush?" John asked as Rodney gently tilted John's jaw and began to apply the calamine to his neck. "And I'm less contagious."

"Not a chance, Sheppard." Rodney turned John's face toward him. His smile was the one that made John's skin tingle--and in this case, it was more of an itchy-tingling, calamine-scented feeling--and John couldn't stop himself from reaching out and smoothing his hand over Rodney's chest. "Of all the things I *am* allergic to, whatever it was that you face planted into isn't one of them. I was up to my elbows in that stuff helping you up and I don't have so much as a tickle."

"In that case," John said, sliding his hand around the back of Rodney's neck and pulled him close. He added, his lips brushing against Rodney's. "Just don't tell me you have a thing for the smell of calamine."

Rodney pulled back slightly wearing a lopsided grin as he looked at John. "Well, you are so pretty in pink."

There may have been more to Rodney's sentence--or not--but it was left unspoken and unknown as John closed the distance between them with a kiss.

_fin_


End file.
